When it comes to awards, recognition, and a decent pay day, good children's fiction authors are rewarded by the system. Their names on the covers of their books become brands. If a child enjoys a book and asks for "another one like this one," a librarian automatically delivers a book by the same author.

For many years, children's nonfiction authors who write on topics where "nothing is made up," have been in the shadows. First, our books are not cataloged and shelved by our names but by the topics we write about. Thus, our books are scattered throughout the Dewey Decimal System. Second, the spaces on the nonfiction library shelves were traditionally filled by the yard with survey books-- collections of facts and information that had no particular conceptual architecture, thus there was often no narrative to make sense of the information. Editors were trained to make these works as impersonal as possible, as if the material in the book had never interacted with a human mind. Journalists had style sheets that told them never, never use the perpendicular pronoun "I". If they had to impose themselves in a story as eyewitnesses they were to speak of themselves in the third personal as in"this reporter" or use the "editorial we." Mark Twain disdained this idea. He said, " Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'" My guess is that the thinking behind this stilted styling was that a work had less authority if it came from the mind of a person and had more authority if it seemed to come from God.

Slowly, we are coming to understand that an author's point of view is part of the truth of nonfiction. We don't do invented dialog without a disclaimer that lets the reader know that the author is imagining what happened. But if that doesn't happen, we categorize such a book as "historical fiction." But often, in history, there are primary source documents where weknowwhat a person actually said. Currently, the best nonfiction authors write with point of view that has solid premises decorated with facts. These books are not supposed to be read the same way one reads a novel. They are often meant to be digested in small bites, so pithy are their concepts the reader can only grasp the big ideas by thinking about them and giving them time to sink in. We write for the uninitiated so that they acquire the background knowledge that they will need later in their education.

Recently, there was a segment on CBS This Morning on the"Golden Age" of Documentary Film Making. I immediately saw the parallel to what is happening in my genre. We are using techniques of fiction writing-- riveting narratives, foreshadowing, atmospherics, to bring to life our stories of the real world. We connect our big ideas to everyday knowledge we assume children already have. In science, I try and make them think extraordinary things about air, water, energy--the most common and almost forgotten aspects of our shared environment. Each author has a distinctive voice that makes material accessible. Even if the concepts are difficult, we know how to speak "child" so that leveled reading is not necessary.

​ It is not as important for our readers to know the facts as it is for them to see how the facts relate to the big ideas that make meaning of our world and to help them create their individual conceptual frameworks to further understand how the world works.

Excellent observations about the work of nonfiction authors. We do have points of view -- and we support them with facts based on research. LIke fiction, there's a story arc in nonfiction--and that's precisely what we ferret out of facts to present to our young readers.

I am surprised at the response to this post as if I were saying something new. Actually, I've been thinking this for so many years that I'm not sure it's my idea. Previously I've complained about how the movie industry creates so much product "based on a true story." They take liberties with the truth for "dramatic license" yet the effect on the public is often to generate interest in the real story. I hope that they read the nonfiction version and that the myth perpetrated by the film does not replace history. Thank you all for your comments.

Sue Reichard

5/3/2019 03:25:01 pm

Vicki, I am sure nonfiction authors knew this, but now readers will look for these well-written books. I was a librarian at a middle school for many years and nonfiction books were the most circulated books in the library.

I have really been paying attention to this for a few years as a teacher--it is much harder to identify NF authors since books as they aren't marketed by author. I have worked over the last several years to help myself and my students become more aware of NF children's authors. Such an insightful and important post--thanks for sharing!

Excellent post, Vicki. We truly are in the golden age of children's nonfiction--and, in fact, nonfiction in general. Alas, top nonfiction books still have to compete for dollars with cheaply-produced series books from so-called library and educational publishers, so additional stiff headwinds remain. Thank you, though, for pointing out that quality nonfiction books are available!

The surprising and confounding part of Vicki's observation is that I, like many nonfiction authors, have never connected the library matrix with exiling my books to the limbo of Dewey's Decimals! Our best and most appealing books appear beside a few other bios and how-to books waaaay back there. We're not listed by author, of course. Why didn't this occur to me? Rats! This is why we don't shine against über-cute talking chihuahuas or class-struggle (princess) fiction.

Ernest Hemingway wrote a fine book, The Green Hills of Africa, in which he attempted to write a work of nonfiction with the same care and dramatic style as a fiction novel. It worked. Good for you, Ernie, but we NF writers for young people batter at that door with every book. Our style and wordplay, our pace and dramatic sense is what our readers deserve. Our most careful and lovingly crafted books have all the stylistic devices we can muster, AND we tell the story, educate, orient our readers in a confusing world. Exhausting.

If you listen very carefully, and if fellow-patrons follow the library "silence!" dictum, you can hear nonfiction writers for young people crying out with literature-grade style, waaaaaay back in the corner.

Great post Vicki. I like the comparison to film documentaries. That's what I feel like I am doing when I am writing. But I'm not only writing the "script," I'm also writing the visuals, the scenes.

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Vicki Cobb

*Award-winning author of more than 90 nonfiction books for children, mostly in science.*Former Contributor to the Huffington Post*Founder/President of iNK Think Tank, Inc.*Passionate advocate for the joy of learning for every child and teacher.

Disclaimer: All opinions, typos, and grammatical errors are my own, especially small word omissions which I often don't notice in my fervor.